I’ve seen the ads on TV and newsprint about the Smile Train, with Jessica Simpson as spokesperson.  We should really donate to that charity.  I’ve got to talk to my wife about it.  Anyway, there is a documentary, “Smile Pinki,” that has been nominated for best short documentary Oscar, and chronicles this little girl’s surgery.

Maybe I’m just out of the loop on reality TV, but I just found out that Stephen Fowler, a recent participant on the ABC TV show Wife Swap, came across as a jerk.  His performance has inspired a Web site, StephenFowlerSucks.com, a Facebook group, “I Can not Stand Stephen Fowler from `Wife Swap,’” and public condemnation by his own wife, who on her blog urged him to get professional help.  He’s facing a bit of a fallout online because of his bad behavior.

I’ve watched a few episodes of Wife Swap, but not regularly.  It’s somewhat uncomfortable TV– I still won’t forget the episode I saw with this extreme right-wing Christian family where the husband dictated the rules.  All of these shows where you see people acting so arrogant, and so disparaging of other people and their beliefs and lifestyles.  I just don’t get it.  Why can’t people be more open-minded?

I watched the highlights video on YouTube, and you know what?  He is a jerk.

CNET reviewers recently published their latest “prizefights” between products, the Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3.  They compared various facets, such as overall design, game library, features, etc.  I’ve been heavily weighing the same choices in my own mind for months now, and I was interested to hear who the winner was in this comparison.

Am I ruining the surprise if I tell you the verdict now?  They rated the Xbox 360 slightly higher.  They rated the Xbox 360 the best gaming machine, and the PS3 a “compelling, do-it-all” machine.  I still like the PS3 better.  I would have felt a bit more sure of myself if the PS3 won, but I still think it fits my simple needs best.

I think the PS3 comes out on top as having the better hardware between the two. Most in the gamer community are well aware of XBox 360’s infamous “Red Ring of Death”, the ominous console harbinger, which signals that the XBox must be sent away for repairs and will be out of commission for at least a month. The “Red Ring of Death” occurs on a reported 16% of all XBox consoles, according to an article on ShackNews about the XBox 360. According to the article, Microsoft contends that the failure rate is only at 3%.

While the hardware repairs are paid for through Microsoft’s warranty plan, that’s a big potential minus for the 360 in my book. Not only does the PS3 have no major hardware issues, but you get Blu-Ray. The XBox 360 is cheaper but with worse hardware.

I do wish/hope that Sony incorporates Netflix streaming to the PS3 one day.  That would be awesome, as you can already watch Hulu and Youtube. What I like about the PS3 is that it is regularly upgraded through firmware updates, so Netflix streaming is still a possibility. That’s just cool.

Now this is just peculiar. A 14-year-old boy in China was supposedly killed when his chair exploded, sending chunks of metal into his rectum. The bleeding this caused killed him. The alleged explosion came from the gas cylinder that was in the base of the chair.

How the hell does that happen?  See the link from Gizmodo here.

I attended my first yoga class today. The company gym on our campus offers a number of free fitness classes, including yoga, Zumba, abs class, core strengthening, etc. So I decided to take a yoga class, as one of my coworkers said it was pretty good. I also realize that I’m not as limber as I used to be, so it couldn’t hurt to get limber again. Especially if I take Sting and his wife up on their offer to teach me that whole tantric thing.

I had no idea you could break a sweat during a yoga class. I got to class a little early, so I did some cardio, then went into the 1-hour class. Yoga appears to be just a whole lotta stretching, breathing, and some use of my 3rd eye. Who knew I had a 3rd eye? I thought it was blind? [chortle, chortle, I'm so witty.]

The instructor told me to take it easy as a beginning, and not to do anything my body wasn’t able to do “Be true to your body.” I did all the exercises, but when the class started raising their legs and posteriors in the air (supported by their hands), I hung back. When they then extended their entire lower bodies over their heads, I laughed and waited for them to finish. No, there was no way I could do that.

It was a pretty slow pace, but I think I’ll do it again next week.